New program supports development of research evaluation metrics

Elsevier’s Metrics Development Program seeks submissions from individuals and institutions

By Gali Halevi, MLS, PhD Posted on 24 September 2014

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Over
the centuries that scholarly research has been published, people have developed
systems to assess its merits. These systems have changed with the times as
different needs and technologies have emerged.

Today, changes are occurring in response to the proliferation
and increasing availability of primary data. This reality has created the
ability to evaluate research on many levels and with varying degrees of
complexity.

Systems that aim to assess the merit and impact of published
research include altmetrics, bibliometrics and scientometrics, to name a few. These
are used to evaluate the quality of research and measure its impact on an
individual, institutional or program level. They include both qualitative and
quantitative methodologies, including the application of quantitative and
qualitative indicators.

Despite the sophistication of today's evaluative metrics,
their use has introduced some fundamental challenges to all who are involved in
this process, including evaluators, administrators and researchers.

Elsevier's
Metrics Development Program

To support further development of scientific indicators and
evaluative metrics, Elsevier has launched the Metrics Development Program (@EMEDP). The
program aims to support researchers and research groups working on scientific
evaluation metrics by offering sample data sets from various Elsevier databases
as well as funding to support the research and development of algorithms,
platforms and solutions.

Disciplinary, program, institution or individual level metrics
development could include:

Bibliometric indicators of
research impact

Altmetrics

Emerging research topics
indicators

Indicators of regional or
disciplinary scientific strengths

Patents or technological
indicators

Multidimensional
evaluative indicators combining different data types

Proposals will be evaluated by an internal Elsevier
committee headed by Dr. Henk Moed, a senior scientific consultant. Dr. Moed,
who recently retired from Elsevier, will provide the scientific advice and
evaluation of proposals. Each proposal will be evaluated based on its contribution
to the development and/or understanding or modelling of scientific indicators
as well as the soundness of the proposed methodology and its originality will
also be considered.

For more information about submissions and proposals,
visit the program website. You can also follow the program on Twitter:

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Elsevier Connect Contributor

Dr. Gali Halevi
is a Senior Research Analyst and Program Director at the Web Analytics group at Elsevier. As a part of her role, she is
responsible for the development of Informetrics tools for Elsevier's leading
products. In addition, she is the director of Elsevier's Metrics Development Program
(EMDP) and the Research Trends Seminar series. She's also a member of the
editorial board of Research Trends and a regular
writer for the magazine.

Working at
Elsevier for 10 years, Dr. Halevi has served in several roles, including the
development and implementation of customer training and educational programs and
various research collaborations with academia, government and industry.
Previously, she was an information specialist providing competitive
intelligence services for pharmaceutical and financial companies.